DO PRIVATE FOOD SERVICE CONTRACTORS SHORTCHANGE NEW JERSEY?

A report released by the Clarion Group, in conjunction with SEIU Local 32BJ, has found that during the 2008-09 school year ten New Jersey schools districts “overpaid more than $320,000 in payroll costs to private food service management companies,” says the Newark Star-Ledger.
Reporter Bob Considine says that “the report indicates the charges Sodexo and Chartwells levied on schools for workers compensation and liability insurance exceeded the actual cost of obtaining the insurance.”
The study’s findings – of “overcharges for insurance, the withholding of rebates, and questionable bidding practices,” could have been used “to purchase more than 4,600 new elementary school math textbooks.” Worse, if what was found in the ten school districts is of any indication of what’s happening in New Jersey’s 378 districts, the “amount of taxpayer money being misappropriated would come to $12 million” (Hard to Swallow). continue reading